1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic device and a printed circuit board unit including a printed circuit board and a cable to be attached to a connector of the printed circuit board.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of personal computer, it is required to fulfill both requirements of miniaturization and weigh reduction of a device and upsizing of a display screen. To fulfill these requirements, a variety of techniques have been used as a display device using a thin and light liquid crystal panel is applied, a light source, a control board and the like are arranged behind a liquid crystal panel rather than in a side thereof, so that a display screen is widened according to a narrowed gap between a casing and the liquid crystal panel. Further, an integrated-type desktop personal computer in which a CPU, a hard disk and a display device are housed within a same casing has appeared. Thus, miniaturization and weight reduction has been advanced not only in a laptop personal computer to be carried around, but also in a stationary personal computer.
However, when attempting to fulfill both requirements of miniaturization and weigh reduction of a device and upsizing of a display screen, a liquid crystal panel, a hard disk, a cooling fan, a power source device, various circuit boards and the like tend to be tightly packed in the casing with little space between them. As a result, cables for connecting them are complicatedly wired. In recent years, to simplify wiring and downsize and to reduce the weight of cables, a flat cable having multiple parallel wires disposed widthwise and a flexible printed circuit board in which conducting foil is printed on an insulating film have been applied. However, a flat cable and a flexible printed circuit board may be pulled out from their connectors or damaged when pulled or twisted at terminals. As described above, a liquid crystal panel, a hard disk and the like are tightly packed inside a personal computer. Therefore, when an external force is unwittingly applied to a cable during maintenance or the like and the cable is pulled out or damaged, it may be difficult to find a location of the failure. Moreover, the operation to reinstall the cable may be troublesome.
Reganding this point, it is proposed that a cable is fired to a casing using a jumper wires (Japanese Utility Model Application Publication No. H5-46072) or a socket or a connector is provided with a hook or the like to fix a cable (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H11-67334 and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H11-135188). By fixing the cable attached to the connector onto the casing or to the connector, it is possible to prevent a failure that the cable is pulled out of the connector when an external force is applied.
However, the method recorded in Japanese Utility Model Application Publication No. H5-46072 has a problem in that new jumper wires have to be fitted when the cable is reattached to the connector, and so the cost of reattachment is high. A further problem is that sufficient space and a mechanism for fitting the jumper have to be provided inside the device, so that the device will increase in size. The methods recorded in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H11-67334 and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H11-135188 also result in an increase in cost because a special connector having a hook is used so that a general-purpose connector may not be diverted.
The above-described problems are not limited to a personal computer, but the same generally goes to an electronic device which include a circuit board, a cable and the like.